Ryan Nicol
After adding a whopping 6,153 cases in Thursday’s Department of Health report, South Florida’s tri-county area recorded nearly 6,400 cases in Friday’s version. That’s the first time since the pandemic began that the region has seen more than 6,000 new cases on back-to-back days.
In part, that’s thanks to increased testing, which has trended upward in recent days. But as was true Thursday, the week-to-week averages in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties still show the share of positive tests increasing. That means the case surge is not due to added testing alone.
The good news is that the positivity rate has hovered around 10% for several days now in each county. That is, the number does not currently appear to be continuing to rise. That may be a sign the surge has plateaued, or it could simply be a temporary lull. More data in the ensuing days will shed more light on that issue.
The state is seeing a bump in overall cases following the winter holiday season. The U.K. COVID-19 variant, which health experts estimate is 50%-70% more contagious, has also begun to spread in Florida. The White House has noted what recent state reports have shown, that the virus is undergoing a resurgence in the state.
That trend is unsurprisingly showing up in South Florida, the region hardest hit by the virus due to its large population centers and status as a tourist hotspot. The tri-county area is now just shy of 560,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the outbreak began.
Friday’s report saw another 51 deaths due to the virus in the region, putting the South Florida death toll at 8,178 in less than a calendar year.
Here are some of the weekly numbers for the previous three weeks throughout the South Florida tri-county area*:
Miami-Dade
— Dec. 18-24: 32 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 12 newly-reported deaths per day, 2,162 new confirmed cases per day, 7.9% positivity rate
— Dec. 25-31: 28 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 12 newly-reported deaths per day, 2,447 new confirmed cases per day, 10.4% positivity rate
— Jan. 1-7: 35 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 16 newly-reported deaths per day, 2,713 new confirmed cases per day, 10.6% positivity rate
Broward
— Dec. 18-24: 23 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 6 newly-reported deaths per day, 904 new confirmed cases per day, 6.5% positivity rate
— Dec. 25-31: 31 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 7 newly-reported deaths per day, 1,078 new confirmed cases per day, 9.2% positivity rate
— Jan. 1-7: 27 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 7 newly-reported deaths per day, 1,199 new confirmed cases per day, 10% positivity rate
Palm Beach
— Dec. 18-24: 15 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 7 newly-reported deaths per day, 543 new confirmed cases per day, 6.9% positivity rate
— Dec. 25-31: 29 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 7 newly-reported deaths per day, 648 new confirmed cases per day, 9.4% positivity rate
— Jan. 1-7: 18 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 6 newly-reported deaths per day, 825 new confirmed cases per day, 10% positivity rate
*Due to breaks for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, the state did not release county-level death or hospitalization data for the days prior (Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve). Data from those dates on deaths and hospitalizations are not included in the averages above.
